On the field generated by the periods of a Drinfeld module (Q2007840)

Let \(A={\mathbb F}_q[T]\) and \(K_{\infty}={\mathbb F}_q((T^{-1}))\). Let \(\phi\) be a Drinfeld \(A\)-module of rank \(r\) over \(K_{\infty}\). It is obtained that if \(K_{\infty}(\Lambda)\) is the field generated by the period lattice \(\Lambda\) of \(\phi\), then \(K_{\infty}(\Lambda)=K_{\infty}(\operatorname{tor} \phi)=K_{\infty}\big(\bigcup_{n\geq 1} \phi[T^n]\big)\). For \(r=2\), \textit{A. Maurischat} [Arch. Math. 113, No. 3, 247--254 (2019; Zbl 1444.11125)] showed that the ramification index \(e(K_{\infty}(\Lambda)/K_{\infty})\) may become arbitrarily large. The aim of this paper is to generalize this result for arbitrary rank \(r\geq 2\) and for finite extensions \(L\) of \(K_{\infty}\). In the first section, some general results are obtained. In particular, collecting basis vectors of equal lengths, it is obtained the \textit{special filtration} on \(\Lambda\). The Galois group \(G=\mathrm{Gal}(L(\Lambda)/L)\) acts \(A\)-linearly and length preserving on \(\Lambda\). This fact is used in Section 2, where it is studied the structure of the field extension \(L(\Lambda)/L\). The main result is Theorem 3.5, where it is proved that the ramification index \(e(L(\Lambda)/L)\) may be arbitrarily large and, in particular, the degree \([L(\Lambda):L]\) is unbounded. In contrast, in Section 4, it is shown (Theorem 4.1) that the residue class degree \(f(L(\Lambda)/L)\) is bounded by a constant depending only on \(r\).